


How to Bow as if the World Depends on it

by TelanadasFenharel



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Well-Mannered Idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29698032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TelanadasFenharel/pseuds/TelanadasFenharel
Summary: In the heat of battle, fine manners tend to be easily neglected and not all that greatly missed. Most of the time. Sadly, for once, firing arrows into the problem will not endear Celair to the nobles this time. This is a battle fought with backhanded compliments and over-complicated niceties. Not something that comes naturally to a dalish hunter.Luckily, there are friends willing to instruct him in the wily ways of Game and court alike and do so with an absolutely minimal amount of sass.Though --and this he should have known beforehand, really-- the interpretation of 'minimal' is very very subjective at best.
Relationships: Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Kudos: 10





	How to Bow as if the World Depends on it

With the last dust over Adamant not yet fully settled, with the remains of nightmare and Nightmare still on his mind and in his dreams (and they would remain there for quite a while) he had returned home and life had continued.

Now new dread waited in the imminent future and the very name of it inspired horror. _Mingling_. Social Interactions.

Celair had not been privy to the exact exchange that had led him here. But it was not hard, considering where he now stood, to fill in a few details and imagine the rest.

Because Josephine had pulled him aside, writing board freshly candled, ink pen eternally ready to jot something down, looking perfectly composed if one ignored the way she rolled her pen between her fingers. “Inquisitor, my apologies, I won't keep you for long,” she told him and looked almost not flustered. “Simply... Leliana reminded me of something that might have been forgotten in the heat of the moment.”

“I have nowhere in particular to be at the moment,” Celair said. Indeed, the only thing waiting for him was his whetstone up in his room. And there was a little time set aside for Dorian, but neither he nor the mage wanted to be rushed on that one. Such things took time. “Ask away.”

“There was the question-- Leliana brought it up and I wonder how it slipped our minds until now and I can't believe it took us so long to remember that. I presume the Dalish do not play the Game,” Josephine said and shifted a little, never too hasty to not fling candle wax about, “And so I wanted to ask you about, well, manners.”

“Oh,” Celair said and not much else. Like one waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“You have been picking up much in your time here, so much so it is easy to forget in which areas there might be room for... improvement.”

“I can pretend my way very well through important talks, I would say,” Celair mused idly and worried at his itchy ear for a moment. He could do so still, he knew not yet what waited for him. Later, a part of him would mourn that lucky idiot whose biggest concern had been that he had not played cards with Sutherland and his rag-tag band for over two months.

Josephine blinked and did so quite fluttery. “Yes, I read the reports from Adamant. _But_ , the Winter Palace is a little different than a demon-infested Warden-fortress.”

“Knock on wood for that one, right?” Celair chuckled. And then he did not. “Is something wrong then? Because I thought it would be an improvement to--” he rolled his hand but did not continue. Implication and the recent memory of reading the reports fluttering in by the crate-full supplied the rest, no explanation needed.

“Quite," Josephine agreed, "Well, no. What I mean is, you could be excused for thinking so--” That may have been a mistake to say, or at least to phrase it so. One learned to see the subtle shuffling, the way legs bend to make ready to flee. “That is, however, not what I mean.”

“Ah.” That polite, patient smile, one who wished for those he knew to be open and free with him. Very dear, most sweetest of intentions, one she valued highly. But all the same, 

“What I wanted to know, just so we have something to work with, a baseline, of sorts,” Josephine began, reconsidered, threw her speech over board and improvised, for there was no tactful way to ease into that sort of questioning. Not without a lot more time and a lot more careful, polite prodding, none of which she could afford at this moment. "Could you simply list for me how much you know about table manners?" As good a start as any. Not everyone danced, hard to believe, and not everyone could foil-fence. But impeccable manners could smooth over so much, could be the tipping point in endearing the Inquisitor to those who eyed him suspiciously still.

"Well..." Out in the wilds, a life, admittedly, already accustomed to but all the same new –never before had Celair gone out of his way to find trouble until now-- there was little time to practice good manners and genteel civility. Yet it was also true that it was very, very hard to travel and do battle next to Dorian and Vivienne without picking _something_ up. “A knife is not a fork?” And when that did not appear to quell Josephine's worry any, “Ehm... Utensils from the outside in? I am unsure on where the cheese knife is.” And since Josephine went pale at this, he cocked his head. “Oh, the other way around then?”

Subterranean then. Not simply a matter of catching him up but an entire education in far less than a month. “No, that's-- There might have been... an oversight, Inquisitor. In fact, and please do not take this as an insult, you simply appear so capable that it is easy to forget--!”

“Josephine? Are you alright, you are starting to worry me. Maybe take a breath?”

“A last question, your grace.” And before Celair could so much as nod his agreement, “Do you, by any chance, know about proper etiquette rules? The very basics, let us begin with that.”

The smile was soft and belied the bemused impuissance for that particular topic beneath it. “No?”

And it was only her careful schooling that Josephine did not scream. Not that there was time for it, really.

* * *

“Someone could have told me this a tad earlier,” Dorian said after he had been fetched from the library by an insistent aid. “I would have prepared a lesson plan.”

“No one thought of it, shortcoming on my side,” Josephine said and right away excused herself to fetch something.

Celair watched her go, turned back but did not yet tear his eyes away. Something like dread, the fear of jitters, had begun to grip at him. “ _That_ is your take-away in all of this?”

There was no actual prancing but something very close to it on Dorian's side. Gleeful, almost. Worrisome in any case. “What else?” he asked when he had finished his high-stepped round and stood once more before Celair to face him and grin. Smirk at him without a care in the world. “Can you blame me? Not that I mind teaching, far from it. Especially when I get to instruct and order you around. I will have you know, I have experience tutoring. I am a kind and fair teacher, amatus. I assure you.”

“I'm sure.”

“What biting sarcasm; we need to get that sorted out as well, now that you remind me.”

“How kind and just of you,” Celair said.

“Oh, I know. I allow two breaks and, if you are good and tractable, a hard-candy at the end.” And Celair still did not look convinced to give himself over to Dorian's best-intentioned lecturing. “That is more than my nannies offered me.”

He spun Celair around, grabbed him by the shoulders only to wander upwards to cup his face, a thump to trace the jaw. “We will have you dazzle them, amatus. Blending in like one of them, hardly will they know you wander amongst them, rifling through their darkest secrets--”

“I sincerely doubt I will fool anyone into thinking me one of these snooty douchebags. It's the ears.”

“ _Amatus_ ,” Dorian tsked as he pulled away and shook his head in mild disapproval, “How savage that tongue of yours.”

“But not wrong.”

“Of course not. All the same, that will need to go. Such seething, blistering truths need to be wrapped in a dozen layers of complimentary fluff before you are allowed to fire these off.”

The sound of a door politely and decisively closed. “At the very least,” Josephine chimed in, a tea set under one arm, along with her writing board –the candle blown out and wax not entirely settled yet-- in the other hand, a tin and glass box, the contents whispering like dried leaves. “I have a list and tea prepared.”

Celair watched him with the carefully relaxed gaze of one scouting the fastest route of escape without giving away the fact they were doing so. Nostrils flared, he crinkled his brow. “I already regret this decision,” To Josephine, “Is Cullen available? Vivienne?”

“Oh, you try to break my heart,” Dorian laughed, delighted. “But worry not; there is nothing you could do to deter me--”

Continuing undisturbed, as if musingly to himself, Celair muttered, “Sera, maybe?”

Laughter abruptly stopped. “Absolutely not!” Dorian, appalled despite himself, called. “I will not hear it, do not jest about something like that.”

“What, I thought you did not take me and my ruminations seriously.”

“There is a line that crosses into unacceptable. It is reached now, if you could not tell.”

“Fine fine, What is on the schedule then?”

“What isn't?” Josephine asked and squinted at her own handwriting before returning her gaze to those present. "The basics."

"How basic?" Dorian asked. "As much as I enjoy the idle chit-chat, I do have to ask, exactly what do we have to work with?"

"I think," Josephine said, very diplomatically, "We start at the beginning. The greeting."

"Like what? Banter?"

"A-- little before that. The bow. A good start I would say." And to Celair, for she would not talk of him as if he was not present, how impolite. "You will 

" _Kaffas_..."Dorian said and nodded to himself. "Impressive." When Celair turned to regard him, the very beginning of worry. And _that_ would absolutely not do. Jokes and jests aside, there was no reason to dishearten him. So instead, Dorian laughed, "Now now, none of that. No sad puppy eyes before we even started, else you will have nothing to rouse my pity with later."

Josephine cleared her throat and smiled encouragingly. "Shall we begin?"

"Nothing for it, I suppose," Celair said and resigned himself.

* * *

A visual demonstration was provided, Dorian lead by example while Josephine pointed out the myriad of intricacies that made up the whole with an ease as if they had done so a thousand times.

And then he was bidden to show his own Fingers clasped around his wrist, gentle, insistent, pulled upwards by increments and held his arm there, barely half an inch difference.

Celair considered this new-ish position and found himself less than impressed, “Is it really that necessary? It feels _just_ the same.”

“The proper form _distinguishes_ between commoner and noble,” Josephine reminded, even as Dorian fussed behind him, undeterred. The fingers dancing along his spine, tapping over the ridges playfully certainly weren't necessary for the learning process but did not go amiss all the same.

Josephine continued, unaware or unconcerned by the shenanigans in front of her. “It is of utmost importance that you master it, at least the basic form. Likely not the distinguished ranks for every bow, but perhaps we can use his to our advantage; The humble Inquisitor, respectable, genteel. I will have something drawn up within the hour.”

“Thank you, Josie.” It was easy to believe in the role of the Inquisitor, some shining, grand figure, when she talked about him so. Celair would have liked to meet that Inquisitor, that hero-herald bestowed with fate and highest purpose. Until then, they would have to make do with him. With Celair who could not even greet properly without looking like some fumbling idiot. Why and where exactly they took their faith in him from was a miracle all unto itself.

Dorian tutted at him again, patient, yet unrelenting in his efforts. “Thank her by showing the form, properly this time. Once more, if you would, amatus. Arms bend at the elbow--”

Celair brought his arms up, only to stretch them over his head to work out the kinks trying quietly to settle there. “As opposed to anywhere else, you mean? My hidden second joint between the wrist and the elbow--” He was poked in the side, not hard. But it squeaked all wit right out of him.

“Oh, delightful you are, really, very adorable. Now, bend, left one over the abdomen, right hand behind your back, fingers closed-- Not so firmly-- Yes, better. Palm out, very good.”

Celair could feel once more how Dorian roamed, adjusted here and there a hundred times. Nothing was ever good enough and in a few more iterations perhaps this would start to grate.

* * *

“The worst case and you do not pick it up in time,” Dorian muttered after several such iterations, just loud enough so all three present would hear, “We can simply tie your arm behind your back in the correct position, hm?” And after a moment of disapproving silence, “Amatus, put that finger away, the pose requires a closed fist.”

With his silent protest proven fruitless and going ignored, “It is very hard to concentrate with you ghosting over me like this.”

“Something a little more tangible then?” Dorian asked, leaned closer, almost draped over Celair's back until the elf under him huffed and rolled his eyes.

Miraculously, this did nothing to assist the learning progress and Celair was not shy to make this know. “You are of no help, none at all.”

And this time only the two could hear, “So opposed to it? Should I stop?” The slyness betrayed the fact that he already knew the answer and pulled back just a little.

“Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves.”

“That's what I thought. Now, spine straight.”

Celair did, what else could he have done with someone looming behind him, nudging and pulling him along with every moment. Even while still in motion knew that something was wrong once again. A palm, this one not his own, on his back pushed him forward, gently, held him there, insistingly. He did not mind the closeness, nor the way he was directed about. There was no shame in being led from time to time and false pride would only have led to embarrasment down the road. 

“Not so slow, you will look sarcastic.”

“Are you serious? That can happen? In a bow.”

“Lord Pavus is quite right, I'm afraid,” Josephine agreed. “There is an entire layer to the Game fought out entirely in gestures. But it was a very good attempt.”

“I will doom us all...”

“ _Nonsense_ , amatus. Where is that pluck, that wit of yours?”

“Shaken out of me about twenty tries ago,” Celair sighed and leaned back, back until he nearly slumped against Dorian. “This feels like getting the slowest concussion of my life.”

“Then I suppose it is time for a short break,” Josephine said. “We can go over a short list of trivia, the very necessities, nothing more. But I do not doubt that you will pick it up in no time at all.”

“Lovely,” Dorian laughed, “Some tea to go with it. Why, it will be almost like I am back home. Being quizzed on noble lines.”

The little mournful groan of horror as Dorian hooked his arm around Celair's own to drag him along, went largely ignored and wholly useless.

* * *

There was a difference between tea and Tea. A cup of tea, or mug or glass or even straight from the pot in true emergencies, could be had anywhere. Not much finesse was required to boil leaves to death. But this ritual, to gather around and have tea... That was novel and strange even now. A good kind of strangeness but still.

The cups, unfit to haul around the wilderness, thin as eggshell, painted finely, glazed. Black tea, brewed as strong as it could before turning bitter, served with tiny sandwiches and biscuits smelling of butter.

And at last out came the list laden with tight, neat writing full of things with which to torment poor Celair even further. And was there ever material for all manners of creative torture. Blood lines and feuds, histories and legends and marriages and a thousand different things until his head swam.

“Come, amatus, drink your tea, it will help,” Dorian instructed gently and fixed another cup for him, with candied ginger, the way Celair enjoyed the best. Had he truly spent so long among them to become particular about tea? Apparently.

Tea fixings and trivia. What sweet, sweet torture indeed.

“Well, most of the things gleaned from books you have down to memory,” Josephine said and rolled up her list. “The current events are another matter entirely, but there is a difference between the current Game and the web forever spinning behind it.” She cleared her throat. A biscuit, bitten once, remained on the saucer, leaning against her cup. “That leaves...the bowing. Among other things. But for today, that will suffice.”

Had to, likely. Much more and the Inquisitor would end up hurtling himself out of Skyhold.

“How am I supposed to learn this in this short a time? How long does this take? Years?”

“Amatus, I bowed properly by the time I was three,” Dorian told him and stirred his tea. Somehow even that was done elegantly. A show-off, that one, though this revelation was close to the conclusion that water was wet.

Celair thrummed the tips of his fingers against the rim of his own cup. The buttery biscuits went unheeded. “I think this is an unfair comparison,” he said finally. “Not like I ever needed it before. But could you gut a fish at that age? That's what I used my time for.”

A thoughtful pause, a sip and the quiet clink of porcelain, “I could, in fact, not. Nor can I now. But more importantly, the Empress and the entire Court will not be impressed by that particular skill, I'm afraid.”

“A shame, I can have a trout ready to grill in under two minutes.”

“Lovely that; goes very well with white wine and lemon, not that we ever have that in the field.” And since there was no elegant way to bring them back onto the matter at hand, Dorian wrenched the conversation back on track.. “Shall we try again? Nothing like a bit of exercise after tea.”

“Can we not give dancing a try instead?” Celair asked and made to look, ever so carefully, hopeful. The sound of unrolling parchment was by now akin to screaming in the distance. Foreboding, terrible. “I would not mind dancing, in fact. I mean, I _hope_ I won't mind. But it is dancing, even if it won't be dalish.”

And that, if nothing else, got Dorian's attention, if only long enough to delay the inevitable. And perhaps it would entice him enough to let go of the bowing.

“ _Dalish_ dancing," Dorian you must show me that later. Think of the cultural exchange. I don't think I have ever seen anything of that nature save the paintings.”

“Paintings?”

“Well--” And since there was no tasteful way to tell his dalish elf about the depictions of naked elves dancing under moonlight, most of the times coated up to the chest in blood of questionable origin –not that it had ever mattered exactly whose guts they had ripped from what– be it man or beast, without dying of shame...

And then one could be reassured in their own refined and pure-bred existence and then go get drunk and eat mussels.

Quickly now, before he could ride himself into the mire any more, “...I'll tell you some other time, we are losing focus.”

No objections followed. “Well. I will say this; usually no one gets stabbed in the back when _we_ dance together.”

Dorian tutted, “How positively _boring_! But who am I to argue? How about this then; we shall make it a trade, you teach me yours and I will have you waltz by the end of the day.” Dorian said and brushed their lips together, mirthful, sly, ever so sly.

“I—Well, I do not think I would mind that one.”

“What a coincidence,” Dorian said and it could have been a purr. “Neither would I.”

“Goodness, wonderful,” Josephine said, “I will have someone bring in the step charts; hopefully they can be found in time, I haven't used them in _ages._ ”

“We will manage, dear Lady Ambassador, I am sure,” Dorian said.

“Certainly, of that I have no doubt.” And now, fully caffeinated, there was thrive and ambition once more, plenty enough to plan anew. “We will go over the basics, both sets for the Inquisitor, there is no telling who will want to dance with you.”

“Well, I mean,” Celair said, glanced sideways and made a rustly, amused sound, low in his throat, “I _know_ of one, at least.”

"Perhaps I might even say yes; provided you manage the bow," Dorian said.

"Chantage!" came the cry, sounding scorned and scandalized. "Dorian!"

"Only done out of love! To motivate you, I swear it."

And while they still bickered, Josephine began counting the steps. Dancing, if nothing else, could be done very well while quibbling, after all.


End file.
